


Time and Thought

by Rasalahuge



Series: SupernaturalxPokemon fusion [3]
Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Supernatural
Genre: Accidental Psychic Assault, Brain Damage, Gen, He also tries not to think about his impossible garden, Mental Health Issues, Mew runs Chuck's life for him, he tries not to think about it though, if his mother doesn't first, one of these days Mew and Celebi are going to drive him insane, psychic!Chuck, this should possibly bother Chuck
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-13
Updated: 2015-07-19
Packaged: 2018-03-12 06:31:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3347075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rasalahuge/pseuds/Rasalahuge
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Chuck didn't start writing the Supernatural series because he knew he was a prophet, or even because he wanted to be a writer. He started writing because his house was haunted, or at least so he thought</em>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Stories about Chuck Shurley, Prophet of the Lord, and his two beta readers/slave drivers/best friends, Mew and Celebi.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Mew

**Author's Note:**

> So I was supposed to update 'Family Doesn't End With Blood' this week but accidentally deleted half of the next chapter, so you can have this one in the meantime while I re-write it.

Chuck Shurley didn’t want to be a writer, not originally. Honestly as a kid all he’d dreamt of was, like most young boys, being a Pokémon Trainer. He’d had it all planned out, knew the gym leaders strengths and weaknesses inside out and knew exactly what pokémon he’d have on his team. He’d set out aged ten with a nidoran♂ and a lot of ambition. He’d returned a day later to a very amused mother, dirty and tired and terrified of the forest. He kept Nidoran but let his ambitions of being a true Pokémon Trainer fall to the side.

Next Chuck Shurley had wanted to be a football star. This ambition lasted an even shorter length, the hour it took for the real football stars to pound him into the floor.

For his entire teenage years Chuck Shurley flicked from one career path to another. Too clever to find the idea of working in a shop enthralling but not clever enough to be a high flying super genius - Chuck Shurley was distinctly average. If he had the vague idea of writing a book about a Dad and his two sons on a never ending road trip he’d never had much of an idea beyond that, it was a vague ambition like most of those he’d had in the past.

In fact it wasn’t until he’d well and truly finished college with a singularly unimpressive degree in history, a grumpy and extremely lazy Nidorino and a job offer from a telecommunications company for a desk jockey that it became more than a weird thought he’d have at two o’clock in the morning after way too many drinks. (If he ever woke up after those benders to find weird scribbling about Impalas and a persian with three legs and ghosts… well that was between him and the guy who had the unfortunate job of picking up his trash once a week)

Chuck Shurley didn’t start writing the _Supernatural_ series because he knew he was a Prophet of the Lord or even because he wanted to be a writer. He started writing because his house was haunted, or at least so he thought.

It began when he moved in. Things would move randomly overnight. Food left out on the side would vanish (particularly anything with honey in he noticed). He heard scrabbling sounds from his cupboards. A thorough search confirmed that he didn’t have mice or rats or even a squatter but still the strange things happened.

When a library book Chuck was convinced he’d lost sometime in sixth grade turned up he started to get the feeling that something more than natural was going on. Supernatural even (so Chuck wasn’t the best at naming things, sue him or you know don’t because he’d not all that rich especially not after angels trashed his house that one time).

When he sat down to write the first time it wasn’t to write a book, it wasn’t even to write a story. He sat down to write a list of the weird things that happened in his house so he could figure out if it was something supernatural or just his imagination. A few hundred thousand words, several bottles of beer and a horde of cheap takeout later and Chuck Shurley realised he’d just written a story about Sam and Dean, brothers, going on a road trip to find their Dad and fighting the supernatural along the way.

(He wouldn’t know this until years later but the first book he wrote a full three months before Jess burned on the ceiling of her bedroom and he would never stop feeling guilty that he could have prevented it even if he had no way of knowing that it was the truth)

That would have been it, as far as Chuck Shurley’s forays into writing were concerned, but the day after he wrote his first prophetic works (though obviously he didn’t know that yet) he discovered the source, or rather one of the sources, of weird in his house.

A tiny floating pink mouse with huge blue eyes was hovering over his nose as he woke up from a writing/alcohol/insomnia induced haze.

“Umm, hello?” He blinked at the creature.

“Mew,” The mouse replied floating back and forth and it seemed to Chuck to be bouncing with excitement. He blinked again, wondered if he was still drunk and hence hallucinating, and then stared as the little mouse apparently levitated several printed pages of what looked suspiciously like what he had been writing the night before.

“Uh… okay,” Chuck said watching the wild pokémon that he definitely didn’t recognise and glanced over at Nidorino who was, as usual, sprawled lazily on a cushion in the sun completely ignoring the intrusion. Chuck turned back to the mouse.

“Mew,” the pokémon chirped again now weaving in and out of the floating pages in a strange sort of dance.

“Nice to meet you Mew,” Chuck said, because he was hung over and confused and might well be hallucinating strange pokémon, “What… uh… what are you doing here?”

“Mew,” The little mouse crooned floating over to nuzzle up to Chuck’s slightly fuzzy cheeks in the closest thing to a hug you could get when one participant was about a hundred times bigger than the other. Chuck felt an outpouring of emotion from the little mouse which was a mixture of happiness, joy, _'pleased-to-meet-you-you’re-my-new-best-friend'_ and _'I-haven’t-seen-you-in-forever-where-have-you-been-idiot'_. What Chuck gathered from this was that a) his new friend was clearly a psychic type as if that wasn’t obvious from the levitating and b) the little pokémon _did_ consider him its friend both a brand new one and one of those ones you’ve known maybe forever. Then Mew flew over to his kitchen and Chuck watched as the fridge door opened on its own (or maybe not given the psychic flying mouse) and the pokémon pulled out a jar of honey at least three times it's size. It flew back to Chuck and handed it over and looked at the human expectantly. Given his hangover it took him a minute to work out what it wanted.

“What you can open a fridge door but you can’t open a jar of honey?” He blinked in surprise and got a surprisingly effective sour look from the little mouse (and who knew that something could look terrifying and cute at the same time outside of manga?)

“Mew,” It proclaimed haughtily and Chuck got the message. It was probably best not to piss off the psychic mouse; he knew the stats on the number of psychically induced deaths in humans after they pissed off psychic pokémon. As a peace offering he opened the jar of honey and Mew absconded with the jar chirping its name in delight. It was then that Chuck noticed that the pages were still dancing around his head bizarrely. He plucked a page at random and read it through.

‘Huh’ he thought, ‘this isn’t terrible’. It was then that he noticed that his web browser was open on his laptop (which he was reasonably certain he’d turned off before he passed out) on a page of a little known publishers which specialised in cult book series. Chuck stared at it for a very long time, trying to get his hung over brain to understand that an apparently psychic and previously unknown mouse pokémon had not only read his work but printed it off and liked it enough to hunt out a publisher that might actually read it.

Everyone knew that pokémon were smart, heck it was what separated them from normal animals (well that and the superpowers) with the singular exceptions of magikarp (but gyarados were terrifying so they didn’t count) and psyduck. But Chuck’s brain just could not accept this fact and promptly shut down. Much later he would blame this for the way he looked from his attempt at writing to the website and back and thought ‘what the hell!’ and emailed it off without a second thought.

In retrospect he _definitely_ should have found something fishy about how he got an email less than a week later from the editor-in-chief declaring that they loved the book, would be happy to publish it for him and did he have plans for more? However to be fair to him the idea of a flying mouse conspiring with angels to get him published was a little beyond even his imagination.

So Chuck accidentally became a published author with a psychic mouse as his muse/beta reader/occasional slave master when he had a deadline and couldn’t get everything out of his head because it was such a tangled mess.

Then one day his main characters knocked on his front door and his whole life changed.

And if he forgot to find out what kind of pokémon Mew was, well it was better for his sanity anyway. He probably didn’t want to know.

He definitely didn’t want to know about the time traveling Celebi that lived in his garden but that was a whole other story.


	2. Celebi

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chuck could have sworn that the house he bought only had a back yard that didn't need much in way of maintenance. But at the same time he distinctly remembers that the forest had always been there. He must be going insane, that's the only explanation

Chuck was pretty sure he was going insane.

Admittedly he hadn’t been the picture of sanity for a while. Not since the Supernatural series crashed into his head and life with all the force of a truck bringing with it a small flying, pink mouse-cat pokémon called Mew that apparently didn’t exist. However there was a slight difference between having his life taken over by a series of books and a small pokémon and him looking out into his back garden and wondering since when did he even _have_ a back garden.

He was pretty sure when he bought the house he’d bought it because it had a tiny back yard, not a garden that he didn’t have to spend lots of time tending with his non-existent gardening skills. Yet he couldn’t deny that he had a very lovely, well-tended back garden _now_. Complete with a huge, healthy elm tree that, now he was thinking about it, was a protected tree along with half a dozen of the things dotted around the neighbourhood. Something to do with their age and being natural habitats for rare pokémon, he hadn’t really paid attention except when the solicitor outlined the fact that he would get in a lot of trouble for cutting it down no matter how much damage the roots were doing to his foundations. The people who built the cul-de-sac he lived in had been very clever about roots and foundations and building _around_ the trees.

Or at least he was pretty sure they had been but he could have sworn that if you’d asked him a few days ago he wouldn’t know anything about plants or forest conservation or anything else that sprang to mind when he looked at the giant tree that seemed to have appeared from nowhere in his garden. Except that it had been there all along and hadn’t appeared over night at all.

Yeah, this was why Chuck was probably going insane.

His neighbours, he knew, hadn’t really noticed anything weird. From the short stilted conversations he’d had with them the last couple of days since his nice urban house because suddenly ¬sub¬urban they all believed the trees had always been there. He had no idea why he didn’t, except possibly because he was having some kind of mental break, but it set him on edge which really didn’t help with the migraines he frequently got while writing. It really didn’t help that Mew seemed to love the garden and would spend hours stalking something out there (it wasn’t the usual suspects he knew because he’d seen Mew ignore the various bug pokémon and actual bugs while playing this game) while Nidorino refused to go out there. Apparently he didn’t like the spontaneously appearing trees any more than Chuck did. Or maybe it was whatever Mew was stalking out there he didn’t like.

With a confused expression and a weary sigh Chuck returned to his computer but instead of going to the manuscript he was editing (his publisher was demanding it be turned in in a week but he’d gotten side-tracked – _again_ – by the next book) he opened a much older document. It was a list of strange things that happened in his house and it had been, unfortunately, the catalyst for him becoming a published author. So it was with understandable trepidation that he began to go through the list and edit it. Some things – like the missing honey – he just copied into a new list that was headed ‘Mew’ but there were several things that he found he couldn’t attribute to his house guest and then there were of course the new things – the garden and trees – that _definitely_ weren’t Mew.

“Mew!” Chuck nearly jumped a foot into the air when the small annoyed chirp came at his shoulder while he was staring at the list and trying to make sense of it. He turned to the tiny pink pokémon who was glaring at him with a look that would have put his mother to shame. A wave of _‘What-do-you-think-you-are-doing?’_ came off the psychic pokémon who couldn’t, apparently, speak human languages like some did but did not find it difficult to make herself understood. Mew, Chuck had come to realise early on, was a bit of a slave driver when it came to writing. She would allow him to distract himself from his editing by writing new stories, but if he tried to do anything else when he had a deadline except eat, drink and sleep then he was in trouble.

“I’m just taking a break!” Chuck defended himself, “My brain’s turning to mush!”

If Mew could speak he was pretty sure she’d be saying something like _‘I’ll-turn-your-brain-to-mush-if–you-don’t-do-as-your-told’_ which, if he thought about it closely, was actually terrifyingly plausible because Chuck had never seen Mew go all out but the casual use of her powers indicated that she was a long way from being weak. However the tone of the threat was pretty much exactly as his mother used to get whenever Chuck skipped out on his homework in favour of playing computer games and watching the nerdiest TV shows he could find. That tone was 90% of the reason why Chuck called Mew ‘she’ because he’d never met anyone who wasn’t a mother who could replicate that tone so perfectly even if he had no idea if the pokémon even had a gender let alone what it was.

“But _Mew_ ,” He complained, “The new book didn’t put me too far behind, I’ve only got three chapters to edit before next week. Besides I can’t write anymore if I’m go crazy from the weird shit happening in my house can I?” He offered and Mew rolled her eyes.

“ _Mew_ ,” She chirped sternly and flew around his shoulder to close the list he had made, although he did notice she saved the changes first, and brought up his latest book. The one he should be working on.

“Fine,” Chuck grumbled, “But don’t think this conversation is over. I know you know what’s going on around here. I will find out eventually,”

_'Of-course-you-will-dear'_ Mew sent back to him petting his head before flying off to the fridge. No doubt she planned on stealing some honey (if it could be called stealing when Chuck pretty much gave into the inevitable and added two jars to every grocery order just for Mew) and curling up with it in a sun spot and probably taking an afternoon nap once she finished devouring every last drop.

Chuck sighed and turned back to his book ignoring the grumbling complaint of Nidorino when Mew flew over to snuggle down next to him. At least, Chuck decided, he wasn’t the _only_ one who Mew treated like a misbehaving child, she did the same to Nidorino too although the lazy thing tended to ignore her attempts at mothering and continue to laze about however he felt like.

Two weeks later Chuck was back to staring out into his garden wondering if he actually was insane now rather than just going insane. He could have sworn there were at least ten more houses packed into the little cul-de-sac last week but that didn’t make sense because of course they were in an area of protected woodland and only a certain number of houses, each well-spaced out from one another, were allowed to be built in between trees and the little burbling stream that ran along the back of his garden fence.

If that were the case however why did he remember a number of irritating neighbours that clearly didn’t exist and probably wouldn’t have been allowed to move here if they did given their tendency to tear up any greenery and cover it with concrete? He clearly remembered coming back from the store last week to Mr Fallon at number 12 down the street taking a chainsaw to the tree in his front garden. Chuck distinctly remembered he’d talked about the court case he’d won to get the right to chop the tree down because it of the damage it had caused to his house and car during the storm two months ago. Yet now he was certain that there _wasn’t_ a number twelve and he’d never met a man named Mr Fallon or his lovely wife who almost certainly didn’t make the best damn ginger ale he’d ever tasted.

With his publisher appeased for the moment and the next book well under way he had no pressing deadlines for once and so he could stand and look out of the window watching Mew play in the garden, stalking her friend whatever it was. The cat-like mouse seemed to get happier every time she came back from the game and Chuck was at least seventy percent sure that whatever she was stalking was in fact the thing that was giving him these headaches about the trees.

If he was lucky it would _also_ be the thing that was giving him headaches about the random stuff he’d lost years ago turning up again. At this stage however he was willing to admit he was probably wrong about that. He couldn’t see any link between random trees and rivers appearing in his back garden (or the randomly appearing back garden at that) and his trading card collection that had definitely been burned by a school bully when he was thirteen suddenly appearing in his drawer. Okay so he’d mentioned it out loud while trying to think of plots for the next Supernatural book (as if that would help, Chuck had long since worked out that the plots for books tended to just come to him as he wrote ignoring all his attempts at forward planning done when not writing) but he really hadn’t expected to see it again.

So he had two puzzles but at least the one that was bringing things back from his childhood wasn’t also driving him insane. Deciding he probably shouldn’t let a pokémon boss him about when it was his brain and his garden on the line Chuck left the house and for the first time stepped into the garden that may have always been there but may also have materialised from nowhere.

Looking back Chuck should probably have realised that just _going_ into the garden would have solved all his problems. No sooner had he stepped out than a tiny little green… thing appeared out of thin air and squealed. There was no other possible description for the sound it made when it saw him before promptly attempting to hug him in the exact same way Mew tended to do, making up for the fact that Chuck was enormous compared to them by just squashing its body against his face.

“ _Mew!_ ” Mew sounded both at once incredibly amused and quite disappointed as she flew up and joined in the group hug.

“Uh… hi?” Chuck offered the tiny thing that was attached to his face.

“ _Biiiii_ ,” The little thing trilled and he felt a wave of _‘hello-hi-nice-to-meet-you-oooh-shiny’_ before the creature, and it was a creature he confirmed, was flying off his face seemingly distracted by the buttons of his shirt. Once it pulled away from his face he looked down and gazed at it in shock.

It was bigger than Mew (if you ignored Mew’s tail) closer to two inches compared to Mew’s one. Green and white with huge blue eyes and little antenna that turned blue at the tips. Unlike Mew this little pokémon had wings, which explained it’s flying capabilities although from the emotion that he’d felt coming from it he guessed it too was psychic. To be honest it sort of looked like an onion with limbs and a face and wings and… and maybe it was an onion-fairy? It seemed like the closest description he could come up with.

It was also highly distractible as it had already given up on the buttons of his shirt and was flying over to a rose bush Chuck had never seen before in his life. The bush didn’t look all that happy; it had a few measly buds and half of its leaves were turning brown. The little onion-fairy trilled at it angrily and then vanished in an instant. Chuck blinked, once, twice and then it was back and what had Chuck been thinking because that rose bush had been blooming for weeks and still going strong and…

“Wait is your friend the one doing whatever it is to the garden?” Chuck demanded of Mew who had apparently perched on Chuck’s head to observe.

_‘Duh’_ was the reply as the onion-fairy – and Chuck should probably at least try to find out its name – moved onto the next plant. This one was doing alright, apparently well enough that the little pokémon (at least he _thought_ it was a pokémon, he didn’t know what else it _could_ be) didn’t feel the need to pop off to wherever it was going that screwed with his brain. Instead it just began to sing in that trilling voice at the plant and stroke it. Just that much seemed to make the plant perk up visibly. Chuck pinched the bridge of his nose between two fingers, closed his eyes and prayed for patience.

“I need a drink,” He groaned out loud.

“ _Biiiii_ ,” Chuck opened his eyes to look at the onion-fairy who was offering him a still steaming mug of coffee. He’d be grateful except that as he took the mug he recognised it. This was the cup of coffee he had misplaced a week ago, put it down because it was too hot to drink, gone to fetch a pen and come back to find it completely gone. He’d turn his house inside out looking for that mug, the novelty squirtle one, and here was this little onion-fairy offering it to him.

That was about when Chuck’s brain broke.

“Time travel,” He hissed, “You can freaking _time travel_.” He’d never heard of a pokémon doing that. Honestly he had no idea why the thought even crossed his mind. Far more likely the onion-fairy had stolen the mug and just made a new coffee with its crazy powers. I mean really, his brain went automatically to time travel? He’d been watching way… too… much…

The onion-fairy was looking at him as if he hung the moon, pure amazement filling its brilliant eyes to the brim. He shifted uncomfortably as he felt a wave of _‘wow-your-so-smart-how-do-you-do-that?’_ wash over him. Slightly freaked out he took the coffee before turning to try and catch Mew’s eyes, a difficult prospect given that she was still on top of his head however the smug simply rolled off the little psychic cat-mouse. Chuck could literally feel the _‘I-TOLD-you-so’_ coming from her.

“You’ve been going back in time and… stopping humans from cutting down the forest to build houses?” Chuck frowned, not really understanding but that was about the only thing that made sense. At least it explained why he was so sure that the forest had always been there when he was also pretty sure it hadn’t been.

“Biiiii!” The onion-fairy seemed pleased by that.

“Okaaa-y,” Chuck said warily, “Uh… thanks?” He said, nose scrunched and not entirely sure of what response he should give to that information. “Umm… you’re not going to keep doing it until it’s just my house in the middle of a forest are you? Because as uh, nice, as that would be it would also make it really difficult to get groceries,” The little onion-fairy narrowed its eyes at Chuck before giving a heavy sigh that was definitely _‘fine-moron’_.

“So… Uh. Do you have a name?” Chuck asked and the onion-fairy blinked at him, eyes wide once more as it gazed at the human in bemusement. As if the thing expected Chuck to just know what it was called. Unless it was called Bi? It was an odd name but pokémon tended to have weird names.

Then, bizarrely, he did know.

“Oh. You’re Celebi,” Chuck blinked and wondered if one of the two pokémon had put the information into his brain. They must have because he definitely hadn’t heard of a pokémon called Celebi before and he didn’t know how he’d know it otherwise.

“ _Biiii_ ,” Celebi trilled again and inexplicably Chuck learned that Celebi was a grass-psychic type that was guardian of the forest. What ‘guardian of the forest’ meant Chuck had no idea but he guessed it was probably something to do with the whole forest that both was and wasn’t there.

“So… uh. Are you going to carry on living in my back garden? Because… uh… well there’s plenty of room in the house?” He offered because he didn’t really know what else to say. Celebi looked at him and then smiled brightly and flew forward to engulf his face in a hug again before petting him on the head much like Mew did and flying away back to its plants.

From his head Mew let out a pleased rumbling purr and let her tail drop down to tickle his ear. Chuck was pretty sure she was trying to say _‘good-boy’_ and he tried not to wonder if that meant she had adopted him as a child or a pet as wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer. Either way he decided that if he had a time traveling pokémon making him the best garden possible then he should probably enjoy it. He took his week-old coffee and moved to sit on the old rickety chair that had been out here when he moved in but had never gotten around to disposing off.

By the time he sat down it had transformed into an extremely comfortable swing seat that of course he had been out and bought in the first week so he could enjoy his lovely garden.

Chuck sighed and drank his coffee. This was going to take some getting used to.


	3. Mothers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At the high point in Chuck's career as an author his mother comes to visit. Between her, Mew, Celebi and his migraines he'll be lucky to come out in one piece

Shortly after Chuck published ‘In My Time of Dying’ three things happened. Firstly the popularity of _Supernatural_ exploded (okay so it was a _modest_ explosion, but it still happened. He sold several hundred copies of the book in the space of a few hours which was amazing for him). Secondly his writing-related migraines suddenly kicked up a notch to the point where he could be literally seeing what was happening as he wrote and it left him passed out on the couch for the rest of the day.

Thirdly his mother came to visit.

Okay to be fair his mother had been planning on coming to visit for a while and she’d booked the flights from her retirement home in Florida a whole two weeks before the book was published. That didn’t make it any easier for Chuck to deal with on top of everything else; it just meant he couldn’t ask her to please go away because his head was pounding from another writing session and her hammering on his front door was not helping.

“Urgh,” Chuck moaned and debated between attempting to answer the door and trying not to throw up. He couldn’t do both right now. “Mew,” He pleaded out loud and the tiny pink cat-mouse flew over and tilted her head at him, “Door? Please?” He tried not to give the pokémon orders because he was well aware that Mew was not actually his pokémon, more like his housemate, but right now he was desperate.

“Mew,” She sighed in return and a wave of ‘ _just-this-once_ ’ was sent towards him. Feeling the emotions of someone else was not necessarily pleasant at the best of times but right now it left Chuck groaning again wishing he could just _shut his brain off_. Mew flew off and Chuck contemplated taking a drill to his temple and wondered how far he would get before Mew stopped him. If she was this bad Chuck told himself he was never, _ever_ dating a fan because he was ninety percent certain that Mew only stuck around for his books and any fan was bound to be a hundred times worse.

“Umm… hello?” Maria Shurley said as he heard the door open under the power of Mew’s telekinesis. A stifled gasp of surprise and Chuck just _knew_ that Mew was giving his mother one of her tiny little nose-hugs.

“Mew! Mew! Mew!” The cat-mouse chirped, clearly pleased with the new arrival and apparently perfectly willing to drag her into the house.

“Charles?!” Maria called out, “Your pokémon is adorable but its bad manners to not answer the door yourself,” Chuck groaned again. Great she had called Mew adorable; he’d never get rid of her now (which her he was referring to he didn’t know, his head hurt too much). “Charles?” The sound of footsteps ended and Chuck just knew that both his mother and his friend were stood over him looking down with matching expressions of amusement and exasperation.

“Charles what on Earth are you doing?” She asked.

“Dying,” Chuck replied covering his eyes with his forearm against the light, “Head. Pain. Dying.”

“Oh don’t be so melodramatic,” Maria sighed but moved anyway and moments later he felt her slight weight on the edge of the couch and then a pair of hands were reaching around and massaging his neck. It felt heavenly. “Mew wasn’t it? Well Mew would you mind terribly fetching me a heat pack, if he hasn’t got one there’s one in my suitcase for my hip. I assume he has got a microwave?”

“Mew!” Mew chirped pleasantly and flew off again.

“I’ve never seen a pokémon quite like that one Charles, you’ll have to tell me where you found it,” Chuck’s mother said as if she was commenting on the weather and Chuck wasn’t slowly dying from a migraine on the couch.

“She found me,” He mumbled, because he could at least explain that part, “Evil. Evil psychic cat-mouse thing,”

“Well that’s not very nice, she seems perfectly pleasant,” Maria flicked his ear the way she used to when he was little. “Oh thank you Mew. Why don’t you stay here with Mr Grumpy while I get this heated up and see if he’s got anything in the way of painkillers around?” She suggested and then her hands were disappearing making Chuck groan at the loss and were replaced by the tiny weight of a very tiny pokémon on his chest.

‘ _I-like-her_ ’ Mew sent his way and Chuck flinched.

“Not right now Mew, _please_?” He begged and Mew gave a sigh before scurrying over Chuck’s shirt to nestle into his neck, her tail wrapped around the back of his neck right where his mother had been massaging not long ago and started to rub firmly. It wasn’t quite as helpful as his mother’s hands but it felt nice and he could appreciate the attempt at comfort at least. “Thanks,” He murmured.

“ _Mew_ ,” Mew replied and Chuck had no idea what that was supposed to mean except that the psychic pokémon was being nice enough not to project emotions into his brain while it felt like it was going to explode.

“Here we are,” His mother said when she returned, “Sit up now Charles dear and let me get this around your neck.” A pair of weathered but still surprisingly strong hands pulled Chuck somewhat upright and then draped something heavy and warm around his neck. The warmth suffused through him and his muscles instantly relaxed. His head still pounded but oh that didn’t detract from the wonderful warmth of the heat pack. Chuck let his eyes flicker open to look on his mother’s face.

Maria Shurley was small, wrinkly and had bright silver eyes along with wild silver hair that made her look a little like a pokémon herself. Her smile however was warm and loving even if there was amusement still tugging at her lips.

“Hi Mom,” Chuck said and Maria smiled at him.

“Hello darling,” She leant forward and pressed a kiss to his forehead. “Try and get some sleep. Don’t worry about me dear, I’m sure Mew can entertain me for a while,”

“But…” She had come all this way to see him and Chuck was reasonably sure that before he had a migraine he had been plotting ways to make sure Mew and his mother didn’t have chance to spend any real time together unsupervised.

“Sleep,” His mother commanded and then glanced at Mew, “I don’t suppose you know hypnosis?” She asked and Mew looked at her utterly offended.

“ _Mew_ ,” She said and then turned to gaze at Chuck. The writer couldn’t help but get caught up in those impossible blue eyes and seconds later he felt drowsy despite his migraine. Then he was asleep.

…

As Chuck woke, with nothing but a residual ache and a growling stomach to tell him why he had passed out on the couch again, he had a sinking feeling of foreboding. He was quite sure something had happened just before he passed out that should terrify him but he couldn’t work out what. Then he blinked open his eyes and saw his living room, which looked an awful lot cleaner than it had been when he passed out and promptly remembered everything.

“Shit,” He breathed shoving himself bolt upright in an instant ignoring the twinge of pain from his head in complaint. He looked around but the living room was abandoned of either his mother or Mew. Swinging his legs down to the floor he glanced around uncertainly and tried to work out where they might have gone and then promptly came up with the most obvious answer.

It was bad enough that Mew and his mother had spent who knows how long unsupervised, the way Chuck’s life was going right now? Of course they had dragged Celebi into it. Ignoring the fact that he was in an undershirt and boxers when he had definitely been dressed beforehand he fled through the living room into the kitchen and then out into the back garden.

“Charles!” Maria called out clearly delighted. Chuck turned around and then froze on the spot as his brain exploded for the second time that day.  
His mother was sat in her Sunday best on his impossible swing seat, Mew and Celebi curled up next to her, all three of them reading one of Chuck’s books. Not just any book either. That was ‘Route 666’ which was Chuck’s least favourite of all the books so far and not just because of the awful plot, that was also the one with the god-awful sex scene too. Chuck _hated_ writing sex scenes, it made him feel like a bad porno writer and it didn’t help that no matter how much he tried to skip them they just wrote themselves out anyway. Mostly he managed to cut them in the edit but his publisher had insisted on this one. It made him feel weird whenever he saw that book.

Given that his mother was now sat there reading it he thought he’d probably never look at a copy of that one again.

“Are you feeling better darling?” Maria interrupted his silent freak-out.

“Uh… yeah, thanks. Mom why on Earth are you reading _that_?” Chuck asked and his mother blinked and looked down at the book before looking at her son as if he was insane.

“I’ve read all your books Charles,” She replied lightly, “I like this one a lot. Cassie is such a lovely girl. Will she be coming back do you think?” Personally Chuck thought Cassie had been sort of bratty, although possibly not quite deserving of the racist truck mess.

“I… uh… don’t think so. At least I have no plans to bring her back,” Chuck replied knowing full well that his attempts at planning ahead rarely survived past the first draft of the next book. “Just… do you _have_ to read that one?” He whined, “It’s the worst one. Plus it’s weird. I mean you can guess why it’s weird right? I don’t have to tell you that?” He begged and Maria raised one eyebrow in a way so familiar that he felt like he was a teenager once again trying (and failing) to hide his one porn mag.

“If it’s about the sex scene Charles,” She said with effortless amusement, “I can assure you, as you mother, I do in fact know about sex. I’m also aware that you probably have sex, though I don’t generally think about it.” She sent him a teasing look then and smirked, cruelly, horribly and damn Mew was snickering to herself wasn’t she? He knew this was a bad idea. “To be honest darling, it was somewhat of a relief reading this book. It tells me that you’ve found some company other than your hand at some point,” And damn that was horrifying, given that his mother had just practically outright asked if he was a virgin or not. Right in front of the two pokémon that were his sort-of friends slash housemates.

Mew was rolling about in hysterics. Chuck didn’t even need her to project her emotions to know what she was feeling right now. Celebi on the other hand just raised hir eyes from the book and stared at Chuck with quite literally wide-eyed innocence. Well at least _one_ of his friends was on his side.

“Mom!” He complained, “ _Please_. Can we not do this right now?”

“Of course dear,” Maria was still smirking but she obediently put the book to one side despite Celebi’s rumbled protests. “Are you feeling better now? Headache gone?”

“Mostly,” Chuck replied even as she beckoned him towards her. Embarrassed or not Chuck couldn’t resist that and stepped forward until he was close enough to sit down on the chair next to her. “Just residual ache, it’ll be gone by tomorrow,” He told her and his mother leant over and pressed a kiss to his temple. It did nothing for his headache but warmth spread through him anyway. Oh she might torment him something terrible and organise his life around him but Chuck loved his mother. He wouldn’t trade her for the world.

“Sounds like this isn’t the first time this has happened,” Maria sighed softly running fingers through his hair. Chuck sighed along with her and leant down to rest his head against her shoulder soaking up the warmth and affection that was so strong it was tangible.

“Recently they’ve been getting bad,” Chuck murmured in reply, “Writing is… Writing is hard and stressful,”

“I couldn’t possibly imagine,” His mother said gently, “But I _am_ proud of you Charles, you know that right?”

“I know,” Chuck said and then blinked at her wearily, energy sapped despite having spent the last few hours asleep. “Do you have to call me that?” He asked and she smiled teasingly at him again.

“I could call you Chuckie if you’d like?” She offered and Chuck flinched. Urgh. Chuckie. He’d ditched _that_ name as soon as he was out of Kindergarten. He’d been bullied enough in school without a nickname like that.

“No thanks,” He replied scrunching his nose up in disgust.

‘ _Yes-please!_ ’ That was Mew. Of course it was. His head still ached but the foreign emotions didn’t seem to hurt quite so badly now. Maybe Mew was whispering, or whatever the equivalent was for psychic pokémon.

‘ _I’m-confused_ ’ Celebi chipped in with an audible trill of “Biiii,” to make hir feelings doubly clear. Chuck opened eyes that he didn’t remember closing and offered a hand to the onion-fairy.

“Don’t worry about it Celebi,” He murmured letting hir climb up his arm to nestle in the crook of his neck offering and ear-hug instead of hir usual nose-hug.

‘ _Chuck-okay-okay?_ ’ Celebi murmured into his mind and Chuck smiled wearily.

“I’ve been worse,” He informed his friend.

“Do they speak to you?” Maria intruded suddenly and Chuck glanced over to see Mew had climbed, or actually more likely floated, up to sit on Maria’s shoulder hiding underneath her silver hair. “I mean they can make their feelings’ understood but do they actually talk?”

“Not really,” Chuck answered, “It was mostly simple emotions at first but as I got used to them they got more complex. I sort of automatically translate their feelings now into words. Probably get most of them wrong, but the general gist…” He shrugged lightly, careful not to disturb Celebi.

“They are adorable.” His mother admitted and reached out to pick up something from beside her that he’d missed. It was a honey pot. Chuck groaned. “My neighbour has some bee hives you know, I could send you honey rather than keep buying the terrible stuff from the store,”

“Urgh, you called her adorable and now you’re offering honey. Mew is _never_ going to let you leave,” Chuck groaned and Celebi giggled into his ear as Mew huffed at him in offense.

“Would that be such a bad thing?” Maria asked half laughing even as she opened the honey pot and offered it to the tiny cat-mouse. Chuck snorted as Mew went for it so eagerly she almost fell in.

“Mom you’ve been here a couple of hours and have already won the loyalty of my housemates _and_ somehow found the time to tidy my living room while I was passed out unconscious on the couch. If you stay here forever I will literally have no control over my life anymore,” He informed her.

“As I said; would that be such a bad thing?” Maria asked laughing and Chuck groaned burying his face further into her hair.

“Biiii!” Celebi trilled. ‘ _I-like-her-shall-I-get-her-a-present?_ ’ filtered over into Chuck’s mind.

‘ _Yes_ ’ Mew answered promptly.

‘ _No_ ’ Chuck thought back just as quickly.

If his mother found out Celebi could time travel he was never getting rid of any of them.

He was sure when his head stopped aching he would remember why that was such a bad idea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someone please tell me if I'm using the gender-neutral pronouns for Celebi correctly or not, it's the first time I've used them and I don't want to upset anyone. Chuck's opinion of 'Route 666' is just extrapolated from his comments about it in the episode he meets Sam and Dean, sorry if there are any Cassie fans out there.


	4. Thinking Out Loud

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It wasn't until his mother commented on his hoarse voice during a Christmas Skype call that Chuck realised he hadn't spoken in days. Which was odd because he knew he'd had conversations with Mew and Celebi in that time. What was odder however was that he was fairly sure he'd also had a conversation with Nidorino, who wasn't psychic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something of a filler chapter, my apologies, but I had to set the scene somehow for the next part.

“Hi Mom,” Chuck said as he answered the Skype call. Behind him Mew, tucking into her third honey pot of the day, and Celebi, inside the house for once if only to read Chuck’s most recent book, perked up. Of course they did, they adored his mother. Had done since she came to visit and bribed them with hugs and honey.

“ _Hello Charles_ ,” Maria smiled, “Hello Mew, Celebi,” She added as the two psychic pokémon flew over and crawled to their favourite spots, Mew hiding in Chuck’s hair and Celebi tucked up by his neck.

“Mew!” Mew chirped with an accompanying _‘Hi-how-are-you-when-are-you-coming-back?’_ while Celebi trilled _‘hi-hi-hi-Chuckie’s-Mom-you’re awesome’._ Chuck tried not to wince because it was definitely his mother’s fault that Celebi had started to call him Chuckie.

“They say hi,” Chuck told his mother, who was a little too far away to feel their emotions, “Mew wants to know when you’re coming back, Celebi thinks you’re awesome. But hie also now calls me Chuckie so hie doesn’t get an opinion,”

“ _Even if that opinion is actually right,_ ” Maria’s eyes crinkled in amusement, “ _Chuckie sweetheart that’s not very kind._ ”

“Don’t you dare,” Chuck warned his mother hand hovering over the keyboard, the threat of hanging up very clear.

“ _Yes, alright_ Charles,” Maria smiled at him warmly, “ _How about you tell me about your Christmas and why you couldn’t be bothered to come and visit? Although it sounds like you’re coming down with something. Have you taken something for that voice?_ ”

“What?” Chuck asked blinking, “What’s wrong with my…” He trailed off and realised that actually his voice was a little hoarse. How had he not noticed that? He didn’t feel like he was getting ill and his throat didn’t hurt particularly. At his feet Nidorino ambled up, clearly curious about the extra voice, and moved to put his front feet on the computer tower so he could see the screen.

_‘No-don’t-do-that’_ Chuck thought in his direction idly and Nidorino grumbled but put his feet down obediently. The human rewarded him by pulling him up onto Chuck’s lap despite the fact that the poison pin pokémon was far too big and heavy to really do so.

“I’m not ill Mom, I’m okay. I don’t know what’s wrong with my voice,” Chuck told his mother ignoring the amusement that flowed down freely from Mew. He was far too used to her laughing at him constantly to care anymore. “And I’m sorry I didn’t come down for Christmas. The payment for my last book was delayed; the publisher is having some sort of money issues so I couldn’t spare the cash for flights. Besides I’d feel guilty leaving Mew and Celebi behind, Celebi won’t leave the garden and Mew won’t leave Celebi,”

“ _Is the publisher having problems?_ ” Maria asked in concern and Chuck shrugged.

“I don’t know, Sera won’t say anything. I get the feeling though that _Supernatural_ might be one of the few series they publish that’s still making money,” He answered.

“ _Will it be an issue for you?_ ” His mother looked worried.

“Too soon to say,” Chuck admitted, “In theory so long as people keep buying my books I should keep getting paid but if I lose some of my readership…” He trailed off and shrugged again.

_‘Watch-it-Chuckie’_ Celebi poked at his neck in agitation.

_‘Sorry’_ Chuck apologised to the onion-fairy raising a hand to rub his fingers over hir antennae making hir purr.

_‘I-forgive-you-it’s-okay-keep-doing-that’_ Celebi returned enjoying the attention.

_‘Attention-whore’_ Mew shot down at her friend burying further into Chuck’s hair.

_‘No-arguing-you-two’_ Chuck cut in before Celebi could respond and start an argument. “It’s not an issue right now Mom. If it becomes one then I’ll deal with it. I’m not done with _Supernatural_ , not by a long shot,” He said. He didn’t tell her that the publisher had already shot down two of his newer books. That it was looking increasingly like this year of Sam and Dean’s life, Dean’s last if they didn’t find a way out of that demon deal, was going to be covered by much fewer books than the last two years had been. Thankfully the Christmas themed book had come to him just in time to rush through publication before Christmas. Chuck wasn’t happy with it, he thought it probably needed a few more drafts, but he could understand that they needed something to get readers just before the biggest holiday of the year.

“If you’re sure,” His mother frowned and Chuck smiled at her warmly.

“I’m sure,” He said and turned the conversation away from him and onto her. Chuck was an only child but both his parents had siblings and he had plenty of cousins. They weren’t close, but they were friendly enough that when Chuck called to say he couldn’t make it for Christmas they took Maria in so she wouldn’t be alone.  
It wasn’t long later that he signed off on the call with one last admonishment to take something for his throat and he turned to the three pokémon that were piled on top of him.

_‘Who-wants-lunch?’_ He asked them and immediately three faces perked up.

_‘Honey-honey-honey’_ Mew and Celebi chanted together and Chuck smiled letting his hand fall from Celebi and scratch behind Nidorino’s ears.

_‘There’s-a-surprise’_ He shot back at them sarcastically which made the two tiny pokémon giggle. _‘Nidorino?’_

_‘Strawberries’_ Nidorino grumbled and Chuck smiled warmly and set the pokémon down on the ground again so he could get up.

_‘Strawberries-and-honey’_ He agreed making his way to the kitchen half thinking about his mother’s comments on his voice.

He was halfway there when it struck him that Nidorino was a poison pokémon, not psychic.

Chuck froze and turned back to where Nidorino was ambling around the living room trying to find somewhere comfortable to settle down for a pre-lunch nap and failing miserably because there were piles of paper and books and empty bottles all over.

_‘Nidorino?’_ He thought very, very carefully.

_‘What-now?’_ The grumbling not-quite voice came flowing back towards him amplified by the wave of Nidorino’s slightly grumpy but still affectionate feelings.

“Oh shit,” Chuck said out loud because aside from that phone call to his mother he hadn’t actually spoken a word out loud since the last call from Sera nearly three weeks ago. “What the hell is going on in this house?” He asked out loud.

None of the three pokémon deigned to answer him.

_‘Honey’_ Mew demanded instead. Chuck groaned and headed for the fridge and told himself firmly that he wasn’t going to think about it.


	5. Falling Apart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chuck set the phone down very carefully and very purposefully.
> 
> “It was fun while it lasted, huh?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An update! How terrifying. Check out the banner for this story now on chapter one or on my [tumblr](http://rasalahuge.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Fair warning, this chapter is _sad_. Check the tags for warnings.

Chuck set the phone down very carefully and very purposefully.

He stood, staring at it for several long moments. Unable to find the words. Unable to find even the thoughts.

He’d known it was coming. He had seen it coming months ago and not even because of the weird contagious-physic thing going on in his house.

His publisher had folded. His editor was moving on.

 _Supernatural_ was officially done; whether the author had finished with the series or not. Or, Chuck admitted, whether _Supernatural_ was done with the author or not.

“Mew?” A quiet chirp piped up from behind him and Chuck closed his eyes. Still numb.

His last book would be published and then that was it. No more. It was done.

Dean would go to Hell and that would be it.

“ _Mew?_ ” The chirp was more desperate this time and Chuck sighed. He turned slowly around to face the three sets of eyes watching him with varying expressions of interest.

“It was fun while it lasted, huh?” Chuck asked helplessly. Two of the three faces immediately fell, utterly crushed expressions crossing them. “Guys… guys I’m sorry,” The human said miserably because he had never wanted to see Mew and Celebi look so distraught.

 _‘It’s-not-fair-they-can’t-do-this-why-why-why?’_ Celebi wailed flinging hirself at Chuck clearly hoping for a hug. For once rather than let hir give him a nose-hug Chuck wrapped the onion-fairy up in his arms engulfing hir in the warmest embrace he could manage.

 _‘Bastards’_ Mew sobbed and flew over to join them. Chuck didn’t even hesitate to let the cat-mouse burrow into the hold. At his feet Nidorino sat staring up at the two distraught pokémon looking oddly upset himself given that he’d never been all that interested in Chuck’s books.

 _‘Mother’s-upset’_ Nidorino told him in his gruff not-voice, _‘not-supposed-to-upset-Mother’_ Chuck had no idea why Nidorino called Mew ‘Mother’ but he never really argued against it. It was probably to do with the way Mew mothered everyone she met. He _hoped_ it was to do with the way Mew mothered everyone she met. Now, however, wasn’t the time to be debating pokémon etiquette because Mew and Celebi weren’t the only ones crushed by this news. The human let himself sink to the floor so that Nidorino could join in the embrace and closed his eyes once more. If a few tears escaped then no one in the room would say anything about it.

 _‘It’s-not-fair’_ Celebi repeated.

 _‘I-know’_ Chuck replied silently.

 

***

 

Life wasn’t fair. Chuck knew that intimately. Life moved on and time didn’t stop, not even for Celebi. There wasn’t much else Chuck could do other than pick himself up and carry on. The news had been heart-breaking but it hadn’t been a surprise and the human had been saving up his earnings for months. The publisher might have folded but _Supernatural_ had never been more popular and thanks to the contract Chuck had with said publisher he even saw a good portion of his own profits despite their money issues. It wouldn’t last forever, but it would keep him going for a little while.

Long enough to find a new publisher. Or a job.

Chuck wasn’t confident of the first but the second seemed soul crushing. How could he go back to a normal job after the last three years of his life? Sit in an office all day, in front of a computer but to write emails and fill in forms rather than to fall into the world of Sam and Dean. He’d do it though, because no new books meant no new source of income, only royalties and royalties for a book series with a relatively small cult following would never be enough to live off.

So Chuck took a day to mourn for the loss then he picked himself up, called his mother to tell her what had happened, and then set about trying to get his life in some kind of order. Celebi and Nidorino it seemed followed his example, or tried to, and went back to tending hir garden and spending days lazing in his big cushioned basket respectively.

Mew, on the other hand, wallowed.

Chuck had always known that Mew was far more emotionally invested in _Supernatural_ than any of the others living in Chuck’s house. Even Chuck himself who wrote the things and suffered through migraines and hallucinations could not claim to be as devoted to Sam and Dean’s story as Mew. He could have sworn he had seen her actually cry when Asmar, Sam’s eevee, evolved in a desperate bid to save Sam’s life only to be just a fraction too slow. For Mew every moment, every triumph and failure, every emotion that the two brothers and their pokémon went through was completely real.

Three days after the phone call and Chuck was getting worried. Mew had stationed herself in Chuck’s desk chair, curled up and not moved from the spot bright blue eyes never wavering from the computer, or from the phone sat next to it. She sat there and watched and waited, as if the phone was going to ring any moment and the publisher would say it was all a big mistake, or joke, and did Chuck have the next manuscript ready please?

Five days after the phone call and Chuck had moved right through worried and into panicked. So it seemed had Celebi and Nidorino. The poison pin pokémon had dragged his bed across the room so that it sat by Chuck’s chair and Nidorino lay on it as usual but every ten minutes he would lift himself up, plant his feet on the chair and nuzzle at Mew, trying to get a reaction.

Celebi had opted to bring Mew gifts. Her favourite flowers, shiny stones from who-knew-where, even once two new-born pichu’s and their mother. All went ignored. The last made everyone’s heart sink. Mew was normally incapable of _not_ mothering both people and pokémon alike but baby pokémon were her greatest weakness (except honey and she wasn’t reacting to that either, not even the special pot Chuck’s mother had sent that he’d been keeping for a special day). Present Mew with baby pokémon and she literally melted.

Seven days after the phone call Mew finally reacted to the continual pestering of both Celebi and Nidorino however it was the wrong sort of reaction. Nidorino had been nuzzling at her while Celebi tugged at her tail and chattered at her, quick and bright and never-ending.

“ _MEW!!_ ” The psychic pokémon lunged up suddenly, sharp and dangerous and utterly furious. _‘Leave-me- **ALONE!** ’_ Her mental voice had never been so loud, or so painful. Chuck cringed, putting his hands over his ears in a vain attempt to block her out. Celebi flew backwards, head over feet.

Nidorino, poor faithful steady Nidorino, let out a roar of pain. The psychic blast that accompanied Mew’s tantrum not just reaching him but hitting him, washing over him, with the force of a small, angry tsunami. The poison pokémon didn’t go flying as Celebi had, he just went limp all at once and collapsed, unresponsive.

Chuck watched his whole body chilling as he stared at his pokémon, laid out by his best friend. He’d known Mew was powerful, he’d always known, but such destructive power and he could tell, just from the echoes that rattled around his mind that it wasn’t even a fraction of what Mew could have unleashed.

“ _Biiii!_ ” Celebi screeched in utter terror, recovering hir balance and then zooming towards Nidorino.

Chuck was shaken out of his shocked stupor as he realised that his Nidorino, a poison pokémon, had just been hit by the equivalent of a small semi-truck of psychic energy. Poison pokémon were particularly susceptible to psychic energy.

“Nidorino!” He cried and practically flew to his faithful friend’s side. Nidorino was unresponsive; Chuck had to get him to a pokémon centre. Now.

“Celebi, car keys,” Chuck ordered pulling out a pokéball. The ball would keep Nidorino in stasis until they got to the centre where hopefully he’d get some help. An instant later Celebi was dropping the car keys into Chuck’s hands and he was carefully tucking the pokéball into a pocket. Human and pokémon stood as one, Celebi clinging to Chuck’s shoulder, and headed for the door.

“Mew?” A tiny voice stopped Chuck in his tracks. He turned and met a pair of distraught blue eyes.

“You stay here,” He said firmly, a deep well of fury he hadn’t known he was capable of bubbling up in his chest, “I’ll deal with you once I know if Nidorino will ever wake up,” With that he turned and left. For the first time since that phone call he didn’t care if Mew was miserable.

 

***

 

The nurse at the pokémon centre hadn’t even needed to hear past Nidorino’s name and ‘psychic assault’ before she was scooping the pokéball up in her hands and disappearing into the back while calling for a doctor. Chuck and Celebi were left adrift in the waiting room, far too aware of the eyes of the other humans here waiting for news on their own pokémon. Most, Chuck noted sourly, were probably just here for a pick-me-up after a long training session. Sure enough probably three quarters of the people in the centre were pokémon trainers. He knew they were watching, wondering why he had let his poison pokémon go up against a powerful psychic pokémon. He didn’t have the energy to even try and explain. He just sat on a couch, brushing a finger against Celebi’s antennae in some poor attempt at comfort.

Six hours came and went and Chuck stayed where he was, waiting. The nurse who had taken Nidorino came back to man the reception but she just looked at him with a sympathetic expression that left a lump in his throat. After a while Celebi gave up on perching on Chuck’s shoulder and buried hirself into his jumper. Probably, Chuck acknowledged, because quite a few stares sent his way were sent at the pokémon with him. He’d heard the tell-tale beep of pokédexes unable to identify hir far too often for comfort.

However six hours later a man in scrubs with a blissey at his side stepped out his eyes searching the room and settling on Chuck. The human tensed and Celebi lifted hir head up to watch the doctor approach before burying hirself back into Chuck’s jumper.

“You’re Nidorino’s trainer?” The doctor asked neutrally.

“Yes,” Chuck answered and then stammered, “I mean no, I’m not a pokémon trainer, I write books, but I’m Nidorino’s.” He winced at the babbling, “Is he okay? He’s been with me for years. Please, will he be okay?”

“Why don’t you tell me what happened,” The doctor said keeping painfully neutral.

“I…” Chuck started, stopped and then swallowed, because he couldn’t sell Mew out. He didn’t know what would happen if people discovered the two utterly unique pokémon that lived with him but he knew it wouldn’t be good. “There’s an alakazam, wild I think, who’s been squatting in my attic. It seemed harmless, or disinclined to harm, so I left it there. Nidorino… I don’t know what happened. I just felt… I felt it attack and when I got there Nidorino was unconscious and it was teleporting away.” Alakazam were dangerous, or wild ones were at least, so general principle was to leave them alone when they decided to squat because they tended to move on fairly quickly.

The doctor’s eyes softened a little. Apparently Chuck’s desperation translated well even through the lie and he was believed. Or maybe that was Celebi, either way the doctor moved to sit down next to Chuck while the blissey approached and placed a small wrapped present in his hand. He opened it automatically and felt a wave of gentle healing power wash over him. He smiled faintly at the kind-hearted pokémon and then turned to the doctor.

“Will he be alright?” He asked again, slightly more stable.

“I’ll be honest Mr…?” The doctor paused.

“Shurley,” Chuck filled in for him, “Chuck Shurley,”

“Mr Shurley I will be honest. Nidorino will live but he’s not going to be the same pokémon.” The doctor said gently, “I don’t know how powerful that alakazam was but I suspect it was both very old and very experienced. Nidorino was very, very lucky. Any other poison pokémon would have been dead, I don’t know why he wasn’t; expect that perhaps he had built up some sort of resistance to psychic attacks that his species doesn’t normally have?” The doctor asked pointedly and Chuck swallowed and glanced down at the lump that was Celebi.

“This is Celebi,” He indicated the pokémon who popper hir head up briefly to stare at the doctor; “Hie is psychic and tends to talk to both me and Nidorino psychically.”

“Has Celebi been around as long as the alakazam?” The doctor asked.

“No, hie turned up a few months later,” Chuck answered and the doctor nodded.

“It might be why the alakazam lost its temper. If another psychic pokémon was moving in on what it thought was its own territory.” He said and Chuck swallowed once again.

“You said Nidorino won’t be the same,” He said carefully changing the subject, “What do you mean by that?”

“It will be hard to judge before he wakes up,” The doctor answered, “But I wouldn’t be surprised if he has coordination problems, maybe memory lapses but those are hard to judge in the mammalian pokémon. Mood swings, loss of appetite.” The doctor paused, “A lot of what we can expect from a pokémon permanently damaged by a psychic assault is the same as you’d expect from a human in a similar position. Brain damage is… well brain damage.” The doctor gave Chuck a pitying look, “Looking after him will be difficult,” He said slowly and then looked pointedly at Chuck’s clearly unwashed and slightly worn clothing, “and it won’t be cheap. Likely he will need medical care for the rest of his life.”

“I understand,” Chuck said blinking back tears at the thought of his wonderful, if lazy, Nidorino, “When can I take him home?”

 

***

 

The doctor and the blissey were both impressed by Chuck’s apparent desire to look after his now sorely hurt Nidorino but then they were used to pokémon trainers who might love their pokémon but at the end of the day did not have the time to look after a pokémon that could never again be used for battling. Chuck didn’t battle people; Nidorino hadn’t gotten into any fights that weren’t with the bug pokémon in the back yard in years. They were family. Of course Chuck was taking him home.

That didn’t mean he was allowed to take him home immediately however. First he was forced to go over in excruciating detail what to expect from Nidorino when he woke up, how to care for him, how to manage the brain damage so Nidorino could live as full a life as possible. Then he was forced to hand over his credit card to pay for Nidorino’s treatment. Never before had Chuck resented the free medical care that pokémon trainers got for their pokémon but on seeing the bill for the care he winced. So much for managing on what he had saved up for a while.

Eight and a half days after the phone call that had changed Chuck’s world he and Celebi arrived home, Nidorino tucked up in his pokéball where, the doctor insisted, he was to stay for the next two days to give him a little more time to stabilise after the pokémon had woken up, drowsy but responsive – the best they could have hoped for. Upon walking into the house Chuck blinked and stared in shock and wondered whether his mother had snuck in while he was gone.

The entire house was completely spotless, not just clean but tidy as well. Nidorino’s bed was set in pride of place before a fireplace that Chuck knew had been blocked up before. All the things that the doctor had told Chuck that Nidorino would need now, namely a litter tray and equipment to help him feed if he couldn’t do it himself was set up waiting. The entire room had been rearranged so that furniture was against the walls and out of the way so that someone with poor movement and coordination could move freely without crashing into things too often. In short it was perfect and also stank of not only a guilty conscience but also of spying on the three of them while they were at the pokémon centre.

The culprit herself was crouched up above them, watching with wide blue eyes from the curtain rail.

Celebi looked at the room, then at Mew, and made a very rude sound before flying off to the garden. Chuck knew that his living room was about to be invaded by plants as the guardian of the forest attempted to make Nidorino more comfortable. Out of the corner of his eye Chuck saw Mew cringe. He didn’t acknowledge the pokémon however; he simply walked forward and carefully set the pokéball down in the middle of Nidorino’s bed.

Then he walked across to his computer, booted it up, and started to look for jobs.

Two days later Chuck let Nidorino out of the pokéball. The poison pin pokémon was pretty much as the doctor had warned. He couldn’t walk properly, went dizzy often, refused to eat and couldn’t eat without help when he did. He also had terrible mood swings that not only left him angry but also disorientated. After Chuck was hit and poisoned by his sharp horn for the third time Mew flew down from her perch and took over, an expression of terrible guilt on her face. Chuck retrieved an antidote that the doctor had forced him to take home and watched.

In the two days since they’d been home Mew had not moved from her perch while Chuck had been watching. He knew she had left however because the house miraculously cleaned itself overnight and Chuck’s so far fruitless job searches were organised and neatened and even his CV was corrected. Now she moved to calm Nidorino and Chuck realised in the two days since they’d been home he hadn’t heard or felt even the slightest hint of Mew’s psychic power. Celebi came in from the garden far more often than hie ever had before but the cheerful little pokémon had recovered from the shock of what happened well and resorted to talking to Chuck psychically again very quickly. Mew however was utterly silent and, if what she gave off was anything to go by, utterly emotionless. Chuck knew better though, it just meant Mew was winding herself up so tightly that no one could feel her. No one was at risk of getting hurt again.

If the human had been less angry at the psychic pokémon for hurting Nidorino he might have felt sorry for her, that she believed she had to not be herself in order to protect them. As it was however Chuck was still angry and so he just watched Mew deal with Nidorino’s fit of temper and when the pokémon calmed down he went back to his job hunt and left Mew to it.

By unspoken rule, mostly because Chuck and Celebi still refused to speak to Mew, it became the cat-mouse’s job to look after Nidorino. Mew wasn’t immune to poisoning but she was able to heal herself of it fairly easily unlike Chuck and Celebi. Mew also seemingly had all the time in the world to wait on Nidorino hand and foot unlike Chuck who was watching the money in his bank account slowly dwindle and wondering what he was supposed to do next.

 

***

 

Two weeks after Chuck brought Nidorino home, three since the phone call that changed his life, he received his first job interview. It went well and he started work two days later at a magazine writing whatever his editor threw at him. It wasn’t ideal, but he was writing and he had an income again. His mother was both pleased and disappointed when he told her, pleased he had a job and disappointed that _Supernatural_ hadn’t worked out. She threatened to visit, narrowed her eyes when he told her about Mew and Nidorino and then promised to send him a batch of Nidorino’s favourite berry cookies. Chances were Chuck and Celebi would end up eating them, given that they struggled to get Nidorino to eat anything other than fruit mush these days, but the thought was what counted. Maria also didn’t tell Chuck to stop treating Mew like a hired maid and talk to her. She didn’t need to, Chuck already knew. He just didn’t know how to start the conversation in a way that didn’t end in angry accusations and Mew leaving.

Whatever else happened Chuck didn’t want Mew to leave. He was afraid that if guilt was the only reason she was staying now he no longer wrote the Supernatural books then if he talked to her then she might leave.

For six weeks after bringing Nidorino home things stayed in that strange in-between state. Six weeks of stress and pain and tantrums and the ever mounting guilt as Chuck watched Mew’s increasingly desperate attempts to fix Nidorino. (He figured _that_ out after coming down one night for a glass of water and seeing Mew trying to give Nidorino a present as Blissey had done for Chuck in the pokémon centre) Six weeks where they all learned to live with one another again and never quite managed it. Six weeks where everything slowly, gradually fell further and further apart.

Then after six weeks everything changed. Chuck was hit, out of nowhere, by a migraine so powerful he could have sworn it was a vision. He was at work when it happened, writing out another meaningless article and he blacked out for a full minute. When he came too, surrounded by his concerned co-workers, his head was hurting so much it was practically screaming at him. One line repeated over and over in his head to the point where he turned to one side and vomited.

_Dean Winchester is saved._

_Dean Winchester is saved._

_**Dean Winchester is saved.** _

  


End file.
